The United States and Brazil are fighting for the giant Chinese soybean market

BEIJING — As Brazil takes a greater share By reducing purchases of Chinese soybeans from American farmers, the United States is trying to win back buyers by emphasizing crop quality.

“Soybean production in North America and soybean production in South America are very different,” Carlos Salinas, executive director for East Asia at the American Soybean Export Council, said during a presentation Tuesday at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing.

He compared a range of weather factors between a city in Brazil and a city in the US state of Illinois, such as rainfall in the 30 days before harvest: 231 millimeters versus 72 mm.

“It impacts the condition of the crops. It impacts the quality,” he said.

The half-day event aimed at “advancing a sustainable and resilient soybean supply chain between the United States and China” was co-hosted with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

“What we really encourage soybean buyers to do is make sure they educate themselves on this topic to increase their knowledge,” Jim Sutter, CEO of the US Soybean Export Council, told CNBC on the sidelines of the event, highlighting new ways of measuring quality and nutrition, particularly for animal feed.

American soybeans have become a bargaining chip in escalating trade tensions between the United States and China in recent years. Beijing, the world’s largest soy importer, has also diversified its supplies to Brazil and Argentina in a bid to ensure its food security.

While the United States and Brazil each accounted for about 40% of China’s soybean imports a decade ago, Brazil began taking a much larger share in 2018 after the first round of U.S. tariffs on China, according to CNBC calculations from Chinese customs data accessible through Wind Information.

In the first five months of 2026, more than 60% of China’s soybean imports came from Brazil, 23% from the United States and 10% from Argentina, the data showed.

US soybean exports to China plunged 76% last year to $3.1 billion, down sharply from the peak of $17.9 billion in 2022according to official American figures. At 7.37 million tonnes, American soy remained the largest U.S. agricultural export to China over the past calendar year.

It will take time to convince Chinese buyers to increase their purchases.

Last month, the White House said China would buy at least $17 billion of U.S. agricultural products annually through 2028, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. This amount would be “in addition to purchasing soy commitments he made in October 2025.”

After a Trump-Xi meeting in South Korea last fall, the United States said China had agreed to buy at least 25 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans in each of the following three years.

China has purchased all 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans it agreed to buy in the marketing year ending in August 2026, and almost all of it has been shipped, Sutter said.

As for the next 25 million tons, Sutter said purchases began last week.

On June 17 and 18, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said private exporters had reported sales of 132,000 tonnes of soybeans intended for delivery to China during the marketing year ending August 31, 2027, as well as sales of significantly more soybeans to unknown destinations spread over two years. Sutter noted that these unknown destinations often turn out to be China.

There are other signs of a modest recovery.

“Over the last week and a half, the Chinese have committed to purchasing almost a million tons of crops that we will begin harvesting in September,” Jerry Slocum, director of the United Soybean Board and a Mississippi farmer, told CNBC.

“So we see the deal that the two presidents made, we see it come to fruition,” Slocum said. But he didn’t expect to receive any new orders Tuesday, noting that “there’s still some apprehension about it.”

Slocum also gave a presentation at Tuesday’s event, emphasizing his five-generation family farm’s crop rotation and other efforts to preserve soil quality.

The US Heartland China Association provided delegation to Zhengzhou in Henan province as well as in Beijing last week for a round table on agriculture.

“Americans have been here on the ground in China for a few weeks observing the agricultural cooperation that China and the United States once had on a much larger scale,” said Darrell Irwin, assistant professor in residence in the University of Connecticut’s sociology department, who participated in the visit.

Agriculture is “not as big a business as it was in 2019, when it declined significantly,” he said.

Despite this optimism, U.S. soybeans are unlikely to return to China anytime soon.

Sutter said he expected export volumes to range between 25 million and 30 million tonnes over the next two years, before potentially climbing to 40 million tonnes in subsequent years.